Medical philanthropist, political strategist, and
health activist Mary Lasker (1900-1994) acted as the
catalyst for the rapid growth of the biomedical research
enterprise in the United States after World War II. Called
"a matchmaker between science and society" by Jonas Salk,
Lasker was a well-connected fundraiser and astute lobbyist
who through charm, energy, and skillful use of the media
persuaded donors, congressmen, and presidents to provide
greatly increased funds for medical research as the main
means of safeguarding the health and welfare of Americans.
"You can solve any problem if you have money, people and
equipment," was her principle.

Lasker adopted the traditional role of women as
guarantors of health and well-being to gain entry into the
male-dominated world of policy making and scientific
research. In the process she perfected techniques of
modern political lobbying, in particular coordinated
promotions of legislative bills in the media and the
presentation of high-profile expert witnesses in
Congressional hearings. She helped propel the expansion of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and pushed it into
new directions by securing a place for laymen in its
scientific advisory councils. At the same time, her
determination, assertiveness, and influence brought her
critics who charged that she overstepped her boundaries
both as a layperson and as a woman.

Mary Woodard Lasker was born on November 30, 1900, in
Watertown, Wisconsin, to Frank Elwin Woodard, a banker, and
Sara Johnson Woodard, a homemaker. Her mother engaged in
civic causes, campaigning for the establishment of public
parks and instilling in Mary a lifelong interest in urban
beautification.

Mary's childhood, though otherwise placid, was scarred
by disease. Both of her parents had hypertension and died
from strokes when Mary was in her thirties. She herself
suffered from painful ear infections as a child.
The absence of medical remedies against any of these
conditions left her "deeply resentful" at an early age, she
remembered, and would later fuel her advocacy of medical
research and drug development to treat cardiovascular and
other diseases.

Mary studied at the University of Wisconsin and at Radcliffe College,
from where she graduated in 1923 with a major in art history. After
postgraduate study at Oxford she settled in
New York City, where she worked in a gallery that featured
modern French paintings. She married the owner, art dealer
Paul Reinhardt, in 1926, and became a knowledgeable
collector herself, eventually building one of the premier
private art collections in the country.

After divorcing Reinhardt in 1934, Mary had to make a
living on her own in the midst of the Great Depression.
She launched "Hollywood Patterns," a successful line of
inexpensive fabrics decorated with photos of movie stars.
She also made her first foray into public health activism:
in 1938, she became secretary of the Birth Control
Federation of America and later of its successor, the
Planned Parenthood Federation.

Mary was 38 when she met Albert Davis Lasker (1880-1952)
in a New York restaurant in April 1939. Lasker,
owner of the Lord & Thomas advertising agency of Chicago
and often called the father of modern advertising, had made
a fortune by pioneering the use of logos and slogans to
establish distinctive brands, most famously Lucky Strike
cigarettes. Albert was impressed by Mary's acumen as a
businesswoman, and shared her interest both in art and in
improving public health. The two married on June 22, 1940.

After Albert sold his advertising company in 1942,
the couple devoted itself to making health insurance more
widely available and to improving the health of Americans
by fostering research on major diseases. He insisted that
it would take government funding to achieve the kind of
medical progress Mary envisioned. "I don't know anyone in
government," she replied. As a corporate leader and
chairman of the United States Shipping Board during World
War II, Albert did. "So I got in to see people," Mary
laconically described the beginning of nearly half a
century of high-stakes federal lobbying.

To promote their causes, the Laskers in 1942
established the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. The
foundation created America's most prestigious prizes in
basic and clinical research, as well as a prize in medical
journalism. Mary served as president of the foundation,
while her sister, Alice Fordyce (1906-1992) was its
administrator and the director of the Lasker Awards
program.

The Laskers supported President Harry Truman's
proposal for universal health insurance, at a time when
nearly all business leaders and physicians decried it as
"socialized medicine." Faced with such opposition, as well
as with Albert's cancer (he would die of the disease in
1952), Mary turned her focus to fostering medical research.
She renewed her support for universal health insurance when
the political climate was more hospitable, namely during
the debate over Medicare in 1965. But for her, and more
out of political necessity than choice, medical research
took the place of universal health insurance: she thought
that its advances would produce new cures that were
Americans' best protection against death and disease.

The Laskers drew on their money, connections, and
high-profile foundation to garner federal financing of
medical research, a controversial idea at a time when such
research was the domain of universities, non-profit
institutes, and private business. They concentrated on
cancer, mental health, and birth control, and later added
heart disease, arthritis, and hypertension. Their first
project was to reorganize the American Cancer Society by
committing it to large-scale fundraising, publicity, and
lobbying campaigns.

A lifelong Democrat, Lasker made campaign
contributions to sympathetic legislators of both parties
and enjoyed access to the White House. Her lobbying
efforts, aided by her friend Florence Mahoney, lobbyist
Mike Gorman, and several prominent "citizen witnesses,"
dramatically increased federal expenditures for medical
research. "Mary and her little lambs," as detractors
called the medical research lobby, were a driving force
behind the growth of NIH in the two decades after the war,
when its budget increased from just over $3 million to
nearly $1 billion. She herself helped guide NIH as a
member of its cancer and heart disease advisory panels.
Sam Broder, director of the National Cancer Institute in
the late 1980s, hailed Lasker as "a genius who forced the
realization that the federal government must commit itself
to medical research to benefit all Americans."

"I am opposed to heart attacks and cancer and strokes
the way I am opposed to sin," Lasker explained her single-minded
pursuit of medical research dollars. For her, the
eradication of disease was a realistic goal that could be
achieved by bold initiatives to turn science into cures.
However, her impatience to speed the transfer of medical
knowledge from bench to bedside brought her increasingly
into conflict with scientists and lawmakers. Her opponents
objected that establishment of separate NIH institutes by
disease category rather than by scientific discipline, the
rush for clinical testing of such experimental treatments
as cancer chemotherapy, and heavily publicized campaigns to
"conquer" complex and poorly-understood diseases like
cancer were unproductive because they ran counter to the
thrust of basic research: to gain knowledge of the
cellular and genetic mechanisms underlying disease on which
effective therapies could be based.

Lasker often prevailed in these debates because her
focus on "dread diseases" was a compelling political
strategy that created powerful legislative and electoral
constituencies for biomedical research. Nevertheless, as
the journalist Elizabeth Drew wrote at the height of
Lasker's influence in the mid-1960s, "Mrs. Lasker has been
considered an able woman who has done good things but is
too covetous of power, too insistent on her pursuits, too
confident of her own expertise in the minutiae of
medicine." In the 1970s, her influence diminished as the
controversial "War on Cancer" she helped launch faltered,
new cures for the most deadly diseases failed to
materialize, and biomedical scientists, more numerous and
dependent on federal funding than ever, created their own
lobbying organizations.

Mary's other passion was urban beautification. She
sponsored the planting of trees and flowers and the
construction of lighting and fountains in public spaces in
Washington and her home of New York. A pink tulip, her
favorite, was named after her as a tribute in the mid-1980s.

She served as director, chairman, or trustee of the
American Cancer Society, the United Cerebral Palsy Research
and Education Foundation, the National Committee for Mental
Hygiene, and a range of other medical and cultural
organizations. She received over three dozen honorary
degrees and awards, chief among them the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1969,
and a special Congressional Gold Medal in 1989.

When Lasker died on February 21, 1994, at age 94, she
left more than $10 million to the Lasker Foundation to
support medical research and urban beautification. Her
legacy was the creation of the powerful medical research
lobby, the establishment of the world's largest and most
successful biomedical research enterprise, and the
elevation of medical research as the primary way to ensure
the well-being of all Americans.

Brief Chronology

1900 --Born in Watertown, Wisconsin, November 30

1923 --Graduates cum laude from Radcliffe College with a major in art history

1926 --Marries art dealer Paul Reinhardt in New York

1934 --Divorces Reinhardt and launches her own business selling dress patterns

1938 --Becomes Secretary of the Birth Control Federation of America and later of its successor, the Planned Parenthood Federation

1940 --Marries advertising entrepreneur Albert Davis Lasker

1942 --Establishes with Albert the Lasker Foundation for Medical Research

1943-45 --Reorganizes the American Cancer Society as a modern fundraising and lobbying organization